Human trafficking report China continues to receive bad reviews! U.S. State Department also accuses transnational fraud of threatening national security

In the "2026 Trafficking in Persons Report" released by the U.S. State Department on the 8th, China continued to be listed as the "Tier 3" country with the worst human trafficking. In addition to the forced labor situation of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang, the scale of transnational criminal groups established by Chinese individuals in Southeast Asia has also attracted the attention of the State Department, which emphasized that fraud activities directly threaten U.S. national security.

The "Third Level" countries include China, Afghanistan, Belarus, Myanmar, Cambodia, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea and Russia.

In China, government departments and institutions have widespread policies or patterns of forced labor, including the continued arbitrary imprisonment of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other members of Xinjiang’s ethnic minority and religious groups under the guise of “vocational training” and “de-radicalization.”

Not only that, the Chinese government has also continued to assign Tibetans, Uighurs, and members of other ethnic and religious groups to vocational training and manufacturing jobs in the name of "poverty alleviation" and "labor dispatch programs" that are obviously coercive. Chinese officials have also allowed North Korea to force its citizens to work in China.

North Korea has been rated the worst for 24 consecutive years since it was classified as "Level 3" for human trafficking in a 2003 report. The report states that the Pyongyang government has not made any substantial efforts to address human trafficking. The government's human trafficking policies and patterns are reflected in the systematic political persecution in political prisons and labor training centers, as well as the large-scale mobilization of adults and children, the imposition of harsh labor conditions on North Korean workers working overseas, and the use of proceeds from state-promoted forced labor to fund government actions.